onet.xml and survey

Question

Is it possible to include a survey and it's questions in the onet.xml ? I know you can create the survey list, but is it possible to include the questions as well ?

TIA

so far I have been create list instance as follows ListInstance : elements.xml

  <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
   <ListInstance Title="List1" OnQuickLaunch="TRUE" TemplateType="102" 
            FeatureId="00BFEA71-EB8A-40B1-80C7-506BE7590102" Url="Lists/List1" 
            Description="My List Instance">
  <Data>
  <Rows>
    <Row>
      <Field Name='Q1'>Enter Choice #1</Field>
    </Row>
  </Rows>
 </Data>
 </ListInstance>
</Elements>

List elements.xml :

   <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
    <ListTemplate
    Name="List1"
    Type="102"
    BaseType="4"
    OnQuickLaunch="TRUE"
    SecurityBits="11"
    Sequence="410"
    DisplayName="List1"
    Description="My List Definition"
    Image="/_layouts/images/itgen.png"/>
  </Elements>

and Schema.xml

     <List xmlns:ows="Microsoft SharePoint" Title="List1" FolderCreation="FALSE"   Direction="$Resources:Direction;" Url="Lists/List1" BaseType="4" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
     <MetaData>
       <Fields>
        <Field Type="Choice" DisplayName="Q1" Required="TRUE"   EnforceUniqueValues="TRUE" Indexed="TRUE" Format="RadioButtons" FillInChoice="FALSE" ID="{354d7076-eb3c-4413-837f-764f9ba86d79}" SourceID="{14afce0c-774c-474e-8b75-db12f85d4605}" StaticName="Q1" Name="Q1" ColName="nvarchar3" RowOrdinal="0">
         <CHOICES>
            <CHOICE>Enter Choice #1</CHOICE>
            <CHOICE>Enter Choice #2</CHOICE>
            <CHOICE>Enter Choice #3</CHOICE>
          </CHOICES>
       </Field>
      </Fields>
      </MetaData>
   </List>

When I activate my feature I get error:

System.ArgumentException : column Q1 not exists or has been deleted

Hope for any help..

Answer 1

Generally you could provision List instances and data using something similar to below:

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
    <ListInstance Title="My Survey"
                OnQuickLaunch="TRUE"
                TemplateType="102"
                FeatureId="00bfea71-2062-426c-90bf-714c59600103"
                Url="Lists/Survey"
                Description="">
    <Data>
      <Rows>
        <Row>
      <Field Name='Title'>My title field value</Field>
      </Row>
      </Rows>
      </Data>
</ListInstance>
</Elements>

However, as Survey is more "special", if you want the actual Questions are Columns to your list - and most undocumented (in terms of field types - list on MSDN avaiable at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms948164.aspx)

So you would need to actual define the questions in the columns, whereas the actual Responses are in the "data" element. As questions are defined as custom fields with particular name, so must contains question field, and this field must match with field definition schema - lots of work! One alternative could be to export the list as STP and have a look inside at the manifest.

Try something as follows (haven't been able to find the equivalent for a Likert scale by example - but simple questions should be as regular columns). Also for separator columns i've discovered that a field of type "PageSeparator" basically inserts a page break in your survey:

<Field Type="Choice" DisplayName="Question 1" Required="FALSE" Format="RadioButtons" FillInChoice="FALSE" ID="YOUR_GUID_MUST_GO_HERE" StaticName="Question_x0020_1" Name="Question_x0020_1" ColName="nvarchar3" RowOrdinal="0"><CHOICES><CHOICE>Enter Choice #1</CHOICE><CHOICE>Enter Choice #2</CHOICE><CHOICE>Enter Choice #3</CHOICE></CHOICES></Field>